Ancients (event group thriller)

by David L. Golemon

  He swallowed and with a determined stagger, feigning drunkenness, turned to the stern of Arizona and sloppily saluted the flag, then turned to the officer of the deck and saluted him.

  The salute was returned.

  "Now I advise you to get below, sir, before someone that outranks us both sees your condition." The officer looked at his watch. "Ten minutes until reveille, Lieutenant. I'd move it if I were you."

  Krueger looked at his watch as if he cared and saw that it was ten minutes until eight. Then he nodded and ducked into the nearest hatchway.

  The officer of the deck didn't think it strange that he hadn't recognized the drunken lieutenant; after all, he had been onboard for only a week before he'd drawn OD duty. Still, he turned and looked after the figure as he disappeared.

  Krueger had asked two passing sailors the way to officer's country. After looking at him strangely, they sent him in the right direction. When he found the right deck and the right cabin, he was not shocked to see a U.S. Marine guard standing at parade rest to the right of the door. He swallowed and made his way forward just as the bugle sounded for reveille up on deck. He walked toward the marine, who chanced a look down at his watch and didn't see the German reach for his Luger.

  "Silence will see you through this morning, Corporal. Now, hands away from your weapon, please."

  "Listen, mac, this ain't too goddamn funny. The captain's liable to--"

  "Open the door, please."

  "Isn't happening, lieutenant. Now quit being a wise guy and put that German peashooter away before you get us both in hot water."

  Krueger had had enough. He reached out and slammed the Luger into the corporal's head, and before the stunned marine could fall he reached out, twisted the knob, and let the door fly open, using the weight of the slumping man.

  As he stepped over the fallen marine, he was stunned to see the occupant of the cabin sitting at his small desk, fully dressed. What was worse was the fact that he had a Colt .45 pointed right at his chest.

  The German slowly brought up his weapon, but the captain of the Arizona raised an eyebrow, indicating that it would be the last move he would ever make.

  "You knew?"

  The man sitting at the desk in his sparkling white uniform waved the German farther into the cabin, his eyes moving only when the young marine moaned on the floor. Then his eyes darted back to the intruder.

  "Franklin Van Valkenburg, Captain, BB-39, USS Arizona. That package was addressed to me, and the boy's father used his son to deliver it."

  "You're one of them?"

  "Where is young Lieutenant Keeler?"

  The German said nothing.

  "I assume you killed him."

  Still the German commando said nothing. Van Valkenburg cocked the .45.

  "If I may explain, Captain?" the German stammered.

  "No need. Your group tracked the plate map to Massachusetts and then through the torture of the boy's father you traced the package to this very ship."

  "You must let me--"

  "Explain? Let me take a stab at it to see if my brothers and sisters have informed me correctly. You are about to say you're here to make sure Herr Hitler and his cronies don't get the plate map and then the Atlantean Key. That your Coalition is pulling out of this mess started by the man you placed into power." Van Valkenburg smiled. "Am I warm?"

  The large commando allowed his jaw to fall open.

  "Who are you?"

  Van Valkenburg smiled.

  He tapped the chart and maps on the table with his free hand. "I have a passion for old maps and such. It took me a long while to figure out the plate map and its extraordinary features. It is far beyond any technology we have today." Again he smiled. "I have the very location of the Key your people are seeking and my former associates are trying to hide, right here on this map and chart. Navigation and maps are my hobby and I just couldn't resist. Too bad; you could have delivered this on a silver platter to your masters."

  Suddenly loud sirens started to wail across the harbor and the ship came to life with battle stations called over the loudspeakers. The battleship was rocked violently just as the German commando brought up his weapon. Captain Van Valkenburg was faster and steadier. His shot caught the man squarely between the eyes and he fell across the marine guard. Just as he fired, the captain heard loud explosions out in the bay. Then, without warning, the Arizona was rocked by an explosion.

  The captain quickly pulled the map and charts from his desk and made his way to the bulkhead. He folded them and placed them in a waterproof case, then quickly dialed the combination and opened his personal safe. He made sure the oilcloth wrapping the plate map was secure before he placed the map case in beside it. He was sorely tempted to remove it and keep it on his person and then tear to pieces his map and charts of Ethiopia, but decided against it. He quickly closed the thick steel door and then made his way up to the bridge.

  Ten minutes later, a group of high-altitude Nakajima "Kate" bombers made their way over Pearl Harbor. The Japanese pilots had been practicing for months on silhouettes of ships just like the Arizona. By the time Van Valkenburg made it to the bridge and started to give orders for the defense of his ship, several torpedoes had already struck her, along with three bombs. However, the killing blow came from a redesigned naval artillery shell. A 1,760-pound bomb made its way from the third "Kate" in line and traveled three thousand feet down. The bomb penetrated the deck just to the right of the number-two gun turret. The armor-piercing bomb traveled through several decks, finally lodging in the companionway just outside the Arizona's forward powder magazine.

  The resulting detonation lifted the great ship's bow into the air, completely separating her teak deck from her armor. The internal explosion ripped through her as if she were made of tin, taking nearly her entire compliment of crew with her in a death that would rock the world and incite American passions for years to come.

  Captain Van Valkenburg never made it back to his cabin and the safe that contained the whereabouts of the Key. He died on the bridge of his ship, knowing that the secret of the Ancients would go down with the Arizona. Of the 1,177 men of the great warship, fewer than 200 survived, and not one of them knew of the great secret taken with her to the muddy bottom of Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941.

  BERLIN, GERMANY

  APRIL 28, 1945

  The Brit and the American, wearing the uniforms of Waffen-SS colonels, waited beside a bombed out building three hundred yards away from the German chancellery. The artillery barrage was relentless. The Russian army had just closed the circle of death that very morning. Berlin was now surrounded by the whole of the Red Army, and the order of the day was to smash the German capital until no stone stood upright.

  "Maybe Moeller and Ivan got the hell blown out of them," said the American as he ducked back behind a wall of fallen masonry just as a shell burst in the road a hundred yards away.

  "We'll know in about thirty seconds. The barrage should lift to our right. That's when they should show," the Londoner said as he looked at his wristwatch.

  "This is a lot of risk just to deliver a message to a dead man, if you ask me."

  The Englishman smirked as he looked from his watch to Harold Tomlinson, his American counterpart in this madness. "Ours is not to wonder why ..."

  "Don't hand me that 'do or die' crap. Our part in this little war ended when we pulled out in 1941."

  Suddenly the shelling lessened enough that they heard the sound of a motorcycle winding its way toward them.

  "Right on time. Bloody amazing coordination if I do say so myself," Gregory Smythe said as he spied the motorcycle with a sidecar attached approaching them erratically.

  As the driver and rider stopped and ran for cover, the artillery barrage started up again, shattering buildings and tearing into the last of the German home guard.

  "Someday I hope someone explains to us how the Coalition Council pulled off this little stunt," the American said as he hurriedly waved the Russian and
German to the protective side of the broken wall.

  "Friends in high places, I imagine, even in the Soviet army," Paul Moeller said as he slumped against the wall. "But that didn't stop those German children and old men from shooting at us."

  "Viktor Dolyevski, when we enter the bunker, may I suggest that you not utter a word. I think even the slightest Russian accent may set these fools off. Our masters may think we are expendable, but I do not."

  The big Russian just nodded at Smythe as he placed his black helmet on his head and slapped at some of the dust he had gathered on the ride through the lines.

  "Well, gentlemen, this way to the chancellery," Smythe said as he gestured to his left.

  The four counterfeit officers were led into the alcove 130 feet below the chancellery building. A sour smell permeated the inducted air and a mildewed presence hung in front of the men like an angry ghost.

  A colonel who had a decidedly skeletal look about him had taken the wax-sealed envelope from Smythe and arched his brow, and then had quickly ordered the Coalition visitors to be disarmed. As they were unceremoniously searched and prodded by the overly large SS guards, the four men could hear the sound of drunken laughter coming from somewhere in the back of the cavernous bunker.

  "What could have been, reduced to this," Smythe said sadly, as he looked around the sparsely appointed waiting room.

  Before anyone could answer the Englishman's comment, the SS colonel returned and smartly clicked his polished heels together and half bowed. Behind him stood a short man in a gray, very plain uniform. He was hatless and his hair had been oiled so heavily that it shone brightly under the harsh bulbs hanging from the cement ceiling. Behind him was a skinny soul who had the face of a ferret. This man was of course recognizable not only to the visitors in the room but to most people the world over. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, was sneering at the men before him.

  "I must know what it is you are here to see the fuhrer about," he demanded, looking from one face to the other. His eyes lingered upon the countenance of Dolyevski a moment longer than on the American, the Brit, or the German.

  The smell of cologne was thick in the air and radiated from Goebbels, but it was the underlying smell of sweat and fear that was sickening above all else.

  "We are not here to talk with the likes of you, Heir Minister, but must speak with that fool you call--"

  The Englishman held a hand up to the American's face to silence him.

  "Our business is with your fuhrer, no one else," Smythe said, shooting Tomlinson a withering look.

  Goebbels looked at the American with disdain.

  "This man will take you to him," he said as he stepped aside, the movement hampered by his clubfoot. "But make no mistake: your business here will change nothing."

  The four representatives of the Coalition exchanged amused looks.

  "My name is Boorman. Will you gentlemen follow me, please." He gestured for the men to follow him.

  The two secretaries outside the single door looked as if it were a normal workday. They did not flinch when a woman located somewhere in the labyrinthe depths of the bunker screamed. Both secretaries looked up, not with smiles but with nods at Boorman.

  "You may go right in. He is very pleased the representatives of the Coalition have arrived," said Traudle Junge, the younger of the two secretaries.

  The American looked at the not-too-bad-looking woman for a moment and smiled. She just stared at him until he became self-conscious and followed the others.

  Before Boorman had a chance to open the thick door, another woman opened it, hurried out, and smiled as she passed the five men. Her blond hair was perfectly coiffed and her makeup was impeccable.

  "Excuse me, gentlemen," she said as she fluttered her thick lashes and moved off to confer with Hitler's secretaries. Eva Braun did not give the visitors so much as a curious second look.

  The four men entered the antechamber of Hitler's personal quarters. They smelled fresh flowers and the ghostly remains of Ms. Braun's perfume as they stood rigidly before a man who was ghostly white and as frail as a man twenty years beyond his age.

  "You gentlemen have five minutes to state your business. The furher has a defense meeting with his generals at that time," Boorman stated flatly.

  Smythe almost laughed at the statement. He felt as if he had stepped into the antechamber of the Mad Hatter instead of the leader of the Third Reich.

  Hitler was using his right hand to write something; he kept his left hand out of sight. The glasses he wore looked bent and out of shape. Finally, he looked up with medicinally dilated eyes, dead eyes, the eyes of the insane.

  "Why would traitors to my reich show themselves here?" he asked quietly as he removed his glasses, but refused to look at the four men.

  "The Coalition Council is aware of your plans to escape this bunker; we have also come into intelligence that you and your people plan to make for the Argentine coast. We are here to tell you that this thing will not happen."

  Hitler closed his eyes and allowed his right hand to disappear under his desk to still the left hand and arm, which shook uncontrollably.

  The German guest spoke up. "The Coalition has ordered that you remain here." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a large box, and placed it on Hitler's desk. "The contents of this box are far more lethal and will end this fiasco with more assurance than anything that quack doctor of yours may prescribe. Since you will not be taking your U-boat cruise to the Americas, you are to take your life within twenty-four hours of this meeting, or the Soviet army will take you as prisoner, a sentence that many in the Coalition insist upon anyway. Some believe these pills are too easy."

  "You failed me in not ... not--"

  "What the furher is trying to say is, if you had delivered upon your promise of the Atlantean Key and the bulk of the tectonic sciences, the reich would still be intact," Boorman said as he stood angrily.

  Smythe ignored the man behind him.

  "Herr Hitler, you failed the Coalition five years ago when you disobeyed your orders and attacked Poland, bringing about war with the western powers, thus ending the subtleties of the Coalition plan. Did you think this deed would deserve the reward of the Atlantean sciences? We will just wait for another opportunity; maybe one will arise a little west of Germany next time." Smythe lightly slid the box toward Hitler. "After all, we have all the time in the world. Now, it's either this," he tapped the box, "or you will take the risk of being placed on display in Red Square like the animal you are. It's your choice."

  With those final words, the four men turned and left.

  As the door closed behind the representatives of the Juliai Coalition, little did Adolph Hitler know that planning was already under way for another attempt to consolidate Juliai power and race policies throughout the world. Only this time the Coalition would eliminate the need for a host country altogether to achieve their aims, and soon an all-out attempt would be made to secure the final piece of their plans by having the weapon of the Ancients at its disposal.

  The darkness Germany experienced in 1945 was nothing compared to the utter blackness that was about to set in almost seventy years later.

  The red banner with the golden eagle minus the swastika would be unfurled in a new world.

  PART ONE

  THOR'S HAMMER

  As Thor raised his hammer with a mighty bellow for Germanic sake, he brought it down with a curse and roar and the world did but shake.

  --GERMANIC TOME FROM THE EARLY DAYS OF THE THIRD REICH

  1

  CNBC NIGHTLY NEWS

  "Tensions between the United States and the Russian Republic grew today when the U.S. State Department said that the withholding of grain shipments was directly linked to the Russian aggression in the former Republic of Georgia. This policy is a dramatic shift for the outgoing president of the United States as he strives to rein in the Russian aggression toward its breakaway former republic."

  The scene shifted to a stock s
hot of the empty and barren wheat fields of the Ukraine.

  "Since Russian crop failures of the past four years struck the former communist nation, tensions over the slowing of grain and other essential shipments from the United States have become a major roadblock in East-West relations. The inflammatory declaration from the Russian president stating that his counterpart in the U.S. was using food as a weapon against his nation was deplorable."

  NEW YORK TIMES (AP)

  Washington, D.C.

  As the newly elected president of the United States was sworn in, his dramatic statement that he would remove all barriers to shipments of grain to the Russian republic was seen as a conciliatory move to jump-start negotiations for the removal of Russian troops from the former Russian Republic of Georgia. Although the Russian president hailed the announcement as "promising," he was still adamant about his statement that "the damage has already been done."

  In a related story, the three-year drought in the People's Republic of China has again wiped out over 50 percent of that nation's exportable rice harvest, affecting unstable North Korea. With food shortages in the United States curtailing any extra shipments to Korea, the leader of that nation, Kim Jong Il, has been quoted as saying, "This is just another example of how the United States and Japan view the relations between Korea and the West. The rhetoric could not come at a worse time for the new president as he seeks to quell a growing concern over recent allegations by Russia and China over the unfriendly way they have been treated by the U.S."

  PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA

  PRESENT DAY

  The military parade was for the sake of the visiting diplomats. They had come to Pyongyang to negotiate the food shipments that had been curtailed by North Korea's neighbor to the south. The real hope was that they could convince the northerners that the shipments had been stopped because of bad harvests. The proof they offered was that not only the two Koreas were suffering but Japan and most other Asian nations as well. Clearly, this parade was Kim Jong Il's way of announcing that he was continuing on a warlike path. Begun three years before with a series of nuclear tests, Kim Jong Il's animus toward South Korea and the rest of the Western world seemed as strong as ever. The German, Japanese, and American delegations had left, refusing to play North Korea's game.